Notes

Acknowledgements

Sumit Mukherjee was supported by a teaching assistantship from the College of Staten Island (CUNY).

Author contributions

PB, SM, QP, and LP conceived and planned the experiments. SM, RH, RW, DA, AF, SS, and LP carried out the experiments. All the authors contributed to the interpretation of results. SM and PB took the lead in writing the manuscript. All authors provided critical feedback and helped in shaping the final manuscript.

Funding

This project was supported by Professional Staff Congress (PSC)-CUNY Grants from cycles 45 and 47.

Conflict of interest

Ethical approval and ethical standards

All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Animal Care Committees (IACUC) at the College of Staten Island (approval # 11 − 008) and The Ohio State University Medical Center (approval # 2009A0172).

Animal source

Adult C57BL/6 female mice (2–6 months old) used for the TC-1 tumor experiments were bred and handled at the College of Staten Island (CUNY) [8]. Athymic nude (NCr) mice were purchased from Charles River Laboratories (Wilmington, MA) for the Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) UMSCC47 tumor xenograft model and housed at The Ohio State University animal facility [7]. Both the strains mentioned above were bred and handled in accordance to the consent of respective Institutional Animal Care Committees (IACUC) at the College of Staten Island and The Ohio State University Medical Center. All animal protocols were approved by the respective Institutional Animal Care Committees (IACUC) at the College of Staten Island and The Ohio State University Medical Center.